After finishing our drive through The Winter Safari, we got parked up and decided to see what we could find.
To be honest it was more than a little overwhelming ... should we eat? Should we look at more animals? Should we do the house? Should we do the river cruise? Should we look at the lanterns? Or should we just wander around completely aimlessly?
We opted for the latter ... trying to get our bearings and take everything in ... The lanterns were all over the place and looked amazing in the bright sunshine and, whilst we knew they would look fab in the dark when lit up, we were both just getting a little bit stressed at the numbers of people starting to build up.
We opted for the Cellar Cafe which was tucked round the side of the house. It was pretty busy, though we managed to find some nice calm sofas right through the back. We just had a sandwich and came up with a plan of action.
We decided that we would start the rest of our visit by walking the lantern route in the daylight so we knew where everything was ready for the big switch on at 4.00pm. We would then see what else there was to see depending on how much time we had left.
I will apologise now for the sheer quantity of lantern photos. We were just enthralled by them and in my next post you will get to see them again ... switched on, so if you aren't bothered by lanterns, you may want to bypass this post ... though there were pretty spectacular.
The theme for 2018's Festival of Light promised to take us on a fantastic voyage, with over 1000 breath-taking illuminated lanterns, spread over 30 acres of Longleat's landscaped grounds. We were invited to join a thrilling expedition around the world, journeying through time and space with three characters ... brother and sister Harry and Bea and their terrier companion, Monty.
Our journey started in prehistoric times where we were surrounded by dinosaurs ...
... where we were surrounded by wondrous creatures ...
... where we admired the Lotus flowers and temples ...
... and were in awe at the wild animals roaming the grass ...
We saw Harry, Bea and Monty take a flight in a hot air balloon ...
... which was our favourite part of the lantern exhibition ... it was just stunning and we could only imagine what it would all look like lit up later ...


We started off by heading for the Animal Discovery Centre where there are plenty of smaller animals to have a look at, though it was too cold for many to be out today ...


There wasn't much of the house that was open to visitors and there were no photos to be taken inside so it didn't take us that long and there was not that much to see.
The grounds were looking lovely though, very autumnal ...
We had just finished eating when the clock clicked over to 4pm and, right on cue, the lights clicked on. It was time for round 2, but I'll tell you about that next time 😁
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ReplyDeleteElena ... the lanterns were amazing ... wait until you see what they looked like in the dark and all lit up ... magical 😃
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